Canadian Rail No. 436 SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 1993 -=--:,-=­ I I 1893 - KAMLOOPS CENTENNIAL - 1993 CANADIAN RAIL PUBlISHED'BI ·MONTHLY BY THr: CANADIAN RAILROAD HISTOR ICAL ASSOCIATION EDITOR' Fred F. A"fIuS Fo( your membership in the CRHA. whic/l 'Icludes a CO-EDI TOR: Douglas N.W. Smith subscription 10 Canadian Rail, write to: ASSOCIATE EDITOR (Motive Power): Hugues W 80ni1 CRHA, 120 Ru e St·Pierre. $1. Constant. Oue. J5A 2G9 DISTRIBUTION: Gera.d F'echet1e CARTOGRAPHER. William A. Germaniuk Ra tes: in Canada: $30 (including G5T). LAYOUT: Fred F. Angus outside Canada: $27.50 in U,S. funds. P<,r: '~r Procel p ( i(" ~ ; ' l g ,-------- TABLE OF CONTENTS THE RAILWAY HISTORY OF KAMLOOPS B.C .. .......... ....... .. .. ........ DAVID LI. DAVIES ....•.............. 151 PHOTO SECTION ... .. .. .. .... ............. .................................... ............... BILL THOMSON ...... ............... .172 RAIL CANADA DECiSiONS ............................................................ DOUGLAS N.W. SMITH ........ ...178 THE BUSINESS CAR .......................................... ............ .............. .. .............. ..... .......... ................ .........186 Ca n a~an Rail is continually in need 01 news, stories, histoOcaJ data. photos, maps and other material. Please send all contriooHons 10 the editor: Fred F. Angus, 3021 Trafalgar Ave. Montreal, P.O. H3Y 1H3. No payment can be made for contributions, but lhe contrioolerwill begiven credit for malerial submitted, Material will be returned 10 the contributor it requested, Remember "Knowledge is of Unle value unless it is shaled with Others·. DIRECTORS PAESIDENT: Walter J, Bedbrook Frederick F. Angus J. Christopher Kyle Douglas NW. Smith VICE PRES.: Charles De Jean Alan C. Blackburn William Le Surl William Thomson VICE PRES.: David W, Johnson James Bouchard Robert V. V. NichoUs Richard Viberg TREASURER Robert Carlson Gerard Frechette Ernest Qltewell A. Stephen Walbridge SECRETARY: Bernard Martin Mervyn T. Green Andrew W. Panko Michael Westren The CRHA has a nurrber at local divisions across th e country . Many hold regular meetings and issue newsletters. Ful1her intormation may be obtained by writing to the division. FROKf CO VER : A wtSlbound CPR passt'nger trail! traw'lIing down 111(' lIIai n NEW BflU NSWIC~ DIVISION ROCKY MOI..ffT AlN DMSION P.O Bo. 11 62 P.O. Box 61 02. SIII1Ion -C­ Slrf't1 of Kamloops B.C. in 1902. AI lilt s.n. Jotn N.B. E2!.. 01(>7 Edmorilctl. AI>erUI T56 2NO limt" ,lhc /oca/wags u.H!d /(J SI/)' Ihal they ST LAWRENCE VAllEY DIVISION SELKIRK DIVISION P.O. So.- zz. SJaIion '9' PO 80.39 had Ihe /on/:l'l'l intel'/l/'/xIn railway illlhe MonITMl P O. KlB 3J5 ~,B.C. VOE2S0 world! Tht' mil bllifdilllJ 0 11 tht extreme RIDEAU VAl.LEV OIVISION CROWSNEST & ~EnL E VAllEY OIVISK)/'I P.O So.- iI82 PO, So>; 400 ri8hl .l li/l Slands ill good conditio". anti is B.C. V1C (H9 SmiIt\', F.... Crt. ~7 A 5oA5 Cr;onbfook. (I hOSIe/ for lrallsielll$. KINGSTON DIVISION NELSON ELECTRIC TRAMWAV SOCETY p.o. eo:. 1714 1Z3 View S!reM Kam/oops Museum and Archiw.'s. Kir1gI5IOf'\, ON.. K7L SV$ NeI$on, BC. Vll2V8 TOFIONTO & YORK 0IV1SlON f'AtNCE G EOAGE·NECtlAKO-FRASE.R OIVlSK)/'l P.O So.-S&l9,T_-A­ PO.Boo:2.t011 As pa rt of ilS activities, the CRHA operates loron\C), ON.. M5W lP3 ?rirQ~. B.C, V2N 2S8 the Canadian Railway Museum at Dalson f NlAGAAA ~VISION PACIFIC COAST OWISION Constant, Que. about PO. So.- 5!il3 P O .. OOX 1000. SlatiOn -I<' 51. which is t4 miles St~Ont l2A6W8 Vanc:o\MIf. Be. ~ 2f>1 (23 Km.) Irom downtown ""ontrBal. It is CALGARY & SOUTH WESTERtoI DMSIOtoI ESOUIMAI. T AHO NAHAIMO ~VISION open from late May to early October (daily c/O I., ~ie, s.c.et¥'l lIte a.ImoraI Ao...:I until LaOOuI Day). Members, and their im­ Ig12 W.....,.... fIoe<:I N W. Vidolla, B.C. V8T IBI mediate famities, ale admitledflooof Charge. c..o-v.- T2N3M1 GOAL OF fl£ ASSOCtA. TlOt-I fl£ COUECTlON, PRESERVA T10N AND OISSEMINA lION OF ITEMS REUI. TING TO TtiE tll$TQRY OF RI<ILWA YS IN CI'.NAOA SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 1993 CANADIAN RAIL Page 151 The Railway History of Kamloops B.C. A Century Old Story By David LI. Davies A resident of Kamloops Kamloops, acity of70,000 in south central British Columbia, Before the coming of the railways, Cumcloups or Kamloops celebrated its lOath birthday as a municipality in July 1993. The was a Hudson Bay post on the pack train route that connected the following month the City was host to the Canada Summer Games, fur trade of the northern wilderness of the Province with the the nation's own Olympics, which ran for the two mid weeks, from Company's most westerly headquarters and depot, located 30 August 8th to 21st. So it is no coincidence that this article appears miles from the sea on the river Fraser. The axis of communication in "Canadian Rail" during the course of this year. was roughly north-south and a trip to the coast from Fort Kamloops took many arduous days on narrow horse trails which in the For a moment in its history, Kamloops was sharply focused canyons were dangerous. The coming of the railway to Kamloops both provincially and nationally and it is quite likely that those who dramatically altered the time scale of travel. Journey time between read these pages will also have seen glimpses of the city on Kamloops and the coast shrank to just over 12 hours without toil television, for the CBC showed the Games for one hour per day or brunt of the elements. over 14 days. By contrast with many places in western Canada, where Being in the limelight, gives as good an excuse as any to the railway construction crews appeared out of the east like the examine the railway history of Kamloops. In some parts of rising sun, Kamloops saw its first railway come from the west. In Canada, the railway sadly languishes but not so in this city for it 1881 construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway within British is as dynamic in 1993 as it was in 1893. It is home to both CP Rail Columbia commenced at the village of Yale, at head of navigation and CN Rail. on the lower Fraser. Because of the very formidable barriers of the The railway is very much an alive and intimate part of the Fraser and Thompson river canyons, the railway did not reach cityscape. Alive; because the passage of freight trains is constant Kamloops until 1885. The few inhabitants of the area saw the first and, intimate, because CP Rail's main line parallels the city's main construction train arrive, headed by locomotive 'Lytton', some street - either alongside or up to two blocks away. Most citizens, time between July I I th and 17th, 1885. The date varies depending travelling to or from their work daily, will likely drive alongside on who did the seeing and where. or across a railway line and will have an even chance of seeing a train. And the train whistle has also been a part of Kamloops' life The American contractor, Andrew Onderdonk, continued to work eastwards and on November 7,1885 came the famous link­ for over a century. All this makes the railway an obvious and up of track from eastern Canada at Craigellachie, exactly 100 miles important piece in the mosaic that is Kamloops. The city also shares the distinction, with Portage la Prairie in Manitoba, of being east of Kamloops. In the well known photo recording this event the place where the routes of the two transcontinental railways there is a tenuous link with Kamloops. In the sea of about 40 male converge/diverge. faces, there is one 22 year old worker called Donald Fraser. After pursuing a variety of occupations in the Interior of the Province, To understand how the railways evolved in and around he died in Kamloops in 1969 at the venerable age of 106. Kamloops, it is necessary to appreciate the geography of the area. Think of open grasslands dotted here and there with stands of trees Unlike many instances in the rest of Canada, the CPR at 3000 to 4000 feet elevation, being suddenly aITested by a narrow appears to have had no hassles with land speculators at Kamloops. and deep valley running east to west, whose bottom is 2000 feet In 1885 the tiny village was located on a narrow ledge by the and more below. Observe that immediately beyond and to the Thompson River conveniently above the steamboat landing at the north of this valley, the character of the terrain changes. There is junction of the two rivers. The CPR decided to locate about a half a tumble of tall mountains and everything is clad in conifers, or mile east of this point on suitable flat land and here it created a so it seems. From these northerly mountains a river flows Divisional point with all the needed supporting services. This southwards, also contained in a narrow deep valley. Kamloops is amicable arrangement was due to the foresight of an enterprising where these two valleys meet in an inverted 'T'. The name trio ofB.C. business men who bought up land where they concluded Kamloops is the anglicization or an Indian word meaning possibly a depot would likely be established and then donated 30% of that 'meeting of the waters/of people'. land to the CPR on the condition that a Divisional point would be built on it. Smart thinking! NOTES: (a) In Canada rail distances are still recorded in miles, but road & air miles are in kilometres. For sake of conformity all distances have been quoted in miles. (b) The word 'station' has been used to describe the place where passengers entrain, and 'depot' the area containing station yards and other related facilities.